Tag Archives: airbnb bad review

Crazy Airbnb Host in Bologna Keeps Calling

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Recently my boyfriend and I stayed in an apartment in Bologna, Italy. We had a rather unfortunate start with poor communication from the host about arrival times and confusion about who would be greeting us, leaving us stranded outside the apartment block for over an hour in 34-degree Italian heat with no water, no access to a toilet, and no contact from our host in response to our phone calls and messages. The stay itself was relatively good once housekeeping had let us into the property, though we had some slight issues with the area around the apartment being quite dodgy; this left me in particular feeling quite unsafe.

We returned home yesterday and I wrote a review about my experience. This afternoon my boyfriend received a missed call from our host. Confused by this, I emailed the host asking why he had been calling my boyfriend from Italy. At around 10:00 PM English time I received a barrage of messages from my host, whereby he advised he was calling to “thank us” for the bad review and continued to shout at me about my review, how he felt it was not accurate. When I tried to explain I felt I wrote a fair assessment of the situation that happened he then called me a “ugly little princess” and told me to “stay away from my balls.” He stated that I was not attractive to him and never will be and he has better things to do with his time than talk to me… when he took the initiative and went to the effort of contacting me from the start.

I have since had to contact Airbnb to ask them to intervene as the correspondence is becoming prolonged and making me feel uncomfortable. They say they will investigate. However, I don’t have high hopes after a brief dalliance with their customer service department while staying in a moldy apartment in Tokyo; at that time, they essentially told me that the host had such amazing reviews they felt my opinion went against this and they didn’t personally agree. Even though I had photographic proof of the endless black hairs in the bed and the mold in the bathroom.

Strenuous Hike to Airbnb Cottage: Unable to Warn Others

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My wife used Airbnb to rent what was advertised as “a charming fisherman’s cottage” in La Caleta near Salobrena, Spain. There were some nice photos of the view, but no reviews posted. First lesson learned: if there are no reviews, pass on by. The photo showed an uphill path to reach the cottage, but there was no mention of the fact that there were actually over 250 steps, most of the time steeply uphill, to get to the cottage. The renter mentioned the place was “not for [the] disabled” but my wife and I, in our 60s, are both active people; this climb to the cottage was really hard, especially carrying something in the August heat.

A few days after we left the cottage, my wife suffered a complete hamstring rupture in Granada. I am not claiming there was a cause and effect relationship, but a week of doing that climb (and coming back down was also challenging) couldn’t have helped. The information on the cottage should have stated “uphill climb of over 250 steps to reach the front door may be challenging for older renters or anyone with potential leg problems.” That’s all I would ask. Unfortunately, I was too busy tending to my wife’s accident and the aftermath to even think about posting a review on the site before the deadline ran out and there does not seem to be any way to contact Airbnb directly with a problem like this.

I would never, never consider this “service” again. There is no real accountability other than a bad review, but in our case there was no review at the beginning. We missed the two-week window in which to add one. Hopefully, the next renter will be young and athletic. There were a couple of other issues with the cottage, like the fact that the sun shade over the terrace got ripped to pieces by the wind and even after informing the owner, nothing was ever done, making the terrace unusable during much of the midday. But the accessibility was by far the worst part of this story.

Airbnb Host’s Lack of Maintenance Costs Guests

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We just got back from our vacation at Andy and Rachel’s Knotty Pine House in South Lake Tahoe. This was our first time AND LAST time to use Airbnb. The first night we were there, my four-year-old niece went to take a shower. She was the first one out of our group. When her mom went to turn off the water, the way you’re supposed to turn it off, the hot water knob came loose and sprayed water everywhere. The water dripped from the second floor bathroom down to the first floor bathroom and the kitchen (the first floor bathroom and kitchen share a wall). We contacted the Airbnb hosts immediately.

The homeowner was very frazzled and couldn’t believe that the knob could come off because he had installed it himself just six months ago. He made statements like, “There’s no way it could come off without using a wrench!” He had me running around outside to try to find the water main to shut off the water to the house. He had me look under a piece of wood that covered a hole on the front porch where he thought the water main was. It was not there. While I was talking to him, my brother was able to insert the knob in somehow to stop the water from leaking any further. After this, the host sent his wife over who was staying at one of their other vacation homes in the area because he was out of town. She came over with her father who walked around the house as if to inspect to see if we had caused any other damage, and when he couldn’t find anything, he proceeded to sit down in the living room and wait for his daughter. Talk about awkward.

Needless to say, the host’s wife, Rachel, walked through the bathroom and inspected the shower. She took pictures of the bathroom and the water that had leaked to the first floor. I mentioned to her that all the towels in the house were damp and unusable. She said that they had a back to back reservation and blamed her cleaning people for not getting the towels dried in time for our arrival. She also stated that this was a vacation home and not a hotel. I said that we were paying $329 a night and the least they could do was give us usable towels. She then went into the locked garage and proceeded to give us some dry towels… which she found out were still damp as well. She found five dry ones that she left for us while the rest were being washed and dried.

They were supposed to provide two rolls of toilet paper per bathroom, and one bathroom only had one roll and a half. They told us that since it was late (around 6-7 pm at the time) that they would get a plumber the next morning. So, now we were stuck with one working shower for the thirteen of us to share. We were gone on excursions the next day and thought the repair would be done while we were out. Of course the plumber didn’t come until after 6pm the next night during dinner time. Anyway, we finished our week there and went home and the next thing you know, I got an email from the hosts requesting we pay $180.00 for the plumber who came to fix the loose knob. I told the host that I did not agree with that and that it was their responsibility to keep their rental home in working order. I never heard from the hosts again because they took the situation directly to Airbnb to let them decide.

The evidence the homeowner provided was a picture that I texted her of the loose knob, a screen shot of a text message between them and the cleaning people to ask if the knob was fine when they were cleaning the house before we got there (How are you going to rely on people who can’t even get your towels clean? They couldn’t even put new rolls of toilet paper in the bathrooms, the oven had leftover crust everywhere that sent smoke through the house when we turned it on…), and a screen shot of a text message from the previous people who stayed there – they said that it was fine, but they had taken most of their showers somewhere else. The next thing I got was an email from Airbnb asking what our side of the story was. I told them. Then I got another email saying that they were going to charge my credit card because “there is no denying it happened while you were there.”

We are not denying that it happened while we were there. They failed to take into consideration that the homeowner installed it himself (he told me this in our phone conversation when I had called the number on the reservation to report the problem) and that there could’ve been a possibility that it was installed incorrectly. (The whole house reeked of non-professional installs, e.g. the toilet rocked back and forth, the sink fixtures moved around). They charged my credit card and “disengaged” from further conversation. I repeatedly asked for an explanation of how they came up with their decision and the only response I got was that they have the final say so.

I was so mad that I called the city only to find out that the city has no record of the homeowners pulling any permits for any remodel work done on that home. I believe that the homeowners should be held accountable for something. What if something worse happened while we were there? If there was an electrical fire while we were there, would Airbnb make us pay for it because we were there when it happened? There is no logic to their decision in this matter. My one-star review showed up for one day, but has magically disappeared. How is anyone ever going to get an honest review of the hosts or the place or the practices of Airbnb? According to all the reviews, it was a 5-star place, but of course it is since our honest one-star reviews didn’t get posted!

If we could at least WARN people about how Airbnb goes about making their decisions in matters like this, then hopefully this will not happen to anyone else!

Conclusion:

1. Because the homeowner did a shoddy installation job, Airbnb made us pay a professional to install the shower knob correctly.

2. Airbnb’s Help Center is a joke.

3. The number they provided routed me to someone in Asia who said she could do nothing except email the Airbnb “mediator” to ask her to email me back…I have yet to hear back from her.

4. The “mediator” only responded to my emails after 10:00 pm my time which led me to ask where they could be located. I found out that they are located all over the WORLD, which would explain why they don’t care about local laws that require permits to be pulled for remodel work of any home.

5. There is NO WAY to leave a bad review for the hosts or Airbnb.

6. Whatever the cost, DO NOT EVER USE AIRBNB! There are ALWAYS other options out there!

Guest Threatens Bad Review to Get Free Airbnb Stay

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My guest spent his first time in Airbnb at my place and I paid someone to clean and give him the keys. He claimed that he didn’t like the place and had to pay $500 for a hotel. He clearly expected a hotel and he didn’t cancel the reservation on the biggest holiday weekend of the summer, which was also the busiest. All I know is that he didn’t cancel, kept the keys the entire weekend, and now claims that he will post a bad review if I don’t give him a refund even though he made it impossible for anyone else to book the property. On top of that, my wine glasses were broken! It is a classic lose-lose situation for the host. Beware: do not rent to first time Airbnb guests and stay away from creeps like this guy who try everything they can to scam you!

Host Slanders us on Airbnb Reviews

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One stop over in Mirimar Beach in a two-bedroom loft condo – an excellent place until bed time! We got into the bed and it sagged beyond belief. We lifted the sheets back to see what problem was and took off the mattress protector to find one of the biggest stains we have ever seen on a bed; even the sides of the bed were heavily stained. The sleeper sofa was broken so each of us had to sleep on a sofa; as a result, we hardly got any sleep. Because we had to check out and get on the road it was not possible to contact Airbnb, but we did message the host about how we left the place… he expected us to have his towels cleaned and dried before the 10:00 AM check out time and would charge us $25 for each towel damaged! He didn’t reply, so we left the towels in the dryer so they would at least be dry.

When we got to our next destination, I wrote my review and was very honest about how great the condo had been presented but there was an issue with the bed and screen door; there were no nasty details on the public review. I then sent the host a message saying maybe he needed to get that mattress replaced ASAP. Nothing happened, so we decided to get in touch with Airbnb about wanting some compensation for a couple of bad nights. The other bed was amazing so this wasn’t being greedy. They said they’d look into it.

We woke up the next day to see this mug of a host slander us in the review – red flag to a bull – and got straight onto Airbnb with a live chat and demanded full payment back AND to get his comment removed he sent photos of the stains to prove they were NOT fresh stains! Because it was past the 24-hour mark, we only got a partial refund as we should have contacted someone – a bit difficult at 1:00 AM – and then gone out of range to talk for a day. But they did their best. Although his comment is still on my profile I have since replied to it. Stay the hell away from this nasty piece of trash he is in it for the money and to get more from us through his comments! This guy lives in Arizona and this place is on the coast down in Florida. Please stay away from this host or you are going to get ripped off!

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Ripped off in Rome

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The apartment was nice but unfortunately I was ripped off. The problem was, my girlfriend and I booked the room for 3 days in Rome through airbnb on my phone but I don’t know why it showed that we booked for 2 day and 1 person and charged me 97 euros. I could cancelled it and rebook again but I texted him I made mistake and I’m willing to pay for one extra day on my arrival. He replied it’s okay. When we got to his apartment he calculated and asked me to pay 3×45 euros and 1×45 for my extra night 180 euros in total plus I paid 97 euros paid on-line already. I told him that was way too much as if I had cancelled and rebooked it again we could pay only 145€ for 3 nights. Also the price for one or two people I checked on airbnb is the same. As you pay for the room not the person. Without doubt it was my mistake but I thought he will be honest with me. We arrived to Rome late it was about 1 in the morning so we were tired. We ended up paying 257 euros for three nights in his apartment. After this I complained to airbnb and put a bad feedback about him on his airbnb but unfortunately airbnb didn’t show my review. So I can’t trust airbnb.

Airbnb offers refund without proper review or investigation

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Guests book property for 28 days but after checking in contact Airbnb and say they are not happy, complain about lack of mobile phone coverage, dryer not working, place unclean, etc. etc. then say it is a hazardous environment because guest is six months pregnant and has allergies. They send pictures of a cobweb behind a dresser and a dirty shade in a loft used for storage and other macro pictures that show a spot as proof of lack of cleanliness.

Property was professionally house cleaned. I offer to send housekeeper back to property but guests so far have refused to contact her.

Airbnb says they are entitled to immediate refund and offer to find guests another Airbnb listing in the area. While searching guests remain in property for a week (and are still there).

Airbnb informs me that guests only have to pay for days that they have stayed at property which are substantially reduced based on the monthly booking.

Unable to make any future plans because I do not know when they will leave but expect to be severely out of pocket because of last minute cancellation.

Have tried to contact Airbnb on numerous occasions to discuss the situation. I have also sent detailed emails but case officer rarely responds and when she does offers a very brief response that is not helpful. When I speak with representatives they assure me that everything will be okay but refuse to document it and refuse to provide me with their full names or contact information. Its absolutely hopeless.

From this experience it is obvious to me that Airbnb does not care at all, they continue to make money (for doing nothing) while I am left out of pocket. Very bad experience which I will not repeat. Beware, policies on website are not followed any booking can easily be cancelled which will leave you out of pocket.

Host cancellation – Family out of luck

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So… Here’s the thing. I searched for a holiday property on airbnb and found what we thought to be a great property. One week in August by the sea. Although the host had 0 reviews we were not suspicious as they had only been a member for a few months. So far so good.. Messages start to arrive, we have been pre-approved ( what does that mean ? ) confirm the booking quickly before it expires ?? A few more checks on the small print… everything seems fine , confirm the booking, pay the full amount. All happy, family happy , confirm the dates with work and make the other necessary preparations. ( travel arrangements for all the family )

48 hours go by , I have established direct contact with the host and then…… “ message from host “ Really sorry but I gave the property to a local estate agent and they have just told me that they have a rental for the whole month so.. sorry, but your rental of a week is now cancelled.

Nothing that airbnb can do , host cancelled therefore so is your holiday. Standard aibnb .. we can help you look for another property with a 20% increase. Their offers were not comparable to the original property ( why wouldn’t I have chosen them in the first place ? ) so it’s a refund.

Can I leave feed back , (to warn other potential renters that this host is totally UNRELIABLE ) … No. you can’t leave negative feedback on AirBnB unless you stay at a property, so there is no other way for us to warn people about this on their site.

The only thing that now appears on the hosts page.. ( if you click on reviews ) is The reservation was canceled 28 days before arrival. This is an automated posting

Why do airBnB not make it clear that it was the HOST that cancelled and why. I would probably have stayed clear of this property if I had known.

To airBnB’s credit, they did refund the whole rental amount very quickly and also compensated us for ancillaries that we would have forfeited ( transport to a place that we no longer could go to because our holiday rental had been cancelled ) because they cannot be used if we don’t have the property.

Beware …. You and your family can spend a fortune on tickets and suffer disappointment in your holiday being cancelled.

You have been warned !!